A visit by former Esks DL Julius Williams (97) by Korey Banks of the Lions this morning didn’t hurt when it came time to pick a new CFL team.

This week’s online notes package starts with the opening day of free agency that had no business being as interesting as it turned out.

“That was a very good day for B.C. football.”

Wally Buono was still in his office after reflecting on the opening of CFL free agency and not holding a Monte Cristo and glass of cognac, but it would have been fitting nonethelss.

There was no crowing, no gloating over the fact the two players he wanted most in free agency were Jovan Olafioye and Solomon Elimimian, and that both had decided they wanted to return. But it was not hard to think he was satisfied in the extreme, and that adding defensive end Julius Williams from the Edmonton Eskimos, plus get another year or more out of Paris Jackson and Korey Banks was more than dessert.

The contract extensions for his veterans likely would have come as a matter of course, though it still took a considerable about-face on Jackson’s part to make his happen. What made the Olafioye and Elimimian deals work, it would appear, was the relationship established between the general manager and his players.

In the end, both players had direct contact with Buono at various points during negotiations, with both players indicating they wanted to work something out.

Olafioye said after cementing his Lions deal that he had other NFL offers, but making an NFL team with a limited signing bonus was never going to be as solid as the offer from his CFL team. Getting Olafioye to agree in advance that the Lions offer had a shelf life, likely due to expire at some point this weekend, was sheer genius in hindsight.

Similarly, once Buono became aware of the fact Elimimian had decided not to look at the Cleveland Browns a second time, he restructured his offer and made sure the linebacker was aware of the change, bypassing his agent briefly at one point Friday. A risky move in the long-term perhaps, but the Lions wound up with a player who will tandem with Adam Bighill and turn their linebacking corps into a sprint team.

Buono had no deep relationship with Williams, though two assistants who had coached him in the past, Rich Stubler (Edmonton) and Carl Hairston (Hartford, UFL), vouched for him. The closer in the deal? How about Banks, who had breakfast with Williams at home in suburban Atlanta Friday morning.

It leaves the Lions with options on both sides of the line of scrimmage. And by not overspending on available but marginal free agents left enough roster room to actually not lose their picks from the May Canadian college draft, not an insignificant factor either in a year in which all teams will start handing over players to the expansion franchise in Ottawa. A good day? That was a good week in one day. More in the paper Sunday.

Free agency in 2:00 or less

As for the rest of the day’s doings, here’s a quick recap in chart form around the rest of the league:

We’ll leave it to others to declare the winners and losers. The most amusing part of the day came in the fact it took exactly four minutes after the official start of free agency before the Eskimos came out with a press release announcing the acquisition of Willis, complete with a Kavis Reed quote no less. Of course, no team is allowed to speak to a free agent before 9 a.m. PT.

That ties the unofficial record for fastest free agent signing in the last decade previously held when former Lions lineman Nautyn McKay-Loescher phoned Fifth Quarter to say he’d signed with Hamilton four minutes into free agency. Like Willis, it must have been an intense three minutes of negotiations.

Saye it isn’t so

He’s had more to say about the Lions than anyone in nearly the last two decades, at home games at least. Now Bob Saye is part of the past. The longtime local radio broadcaster announced this week on Facebook that he would not be back this year for games at B.C. Place Stadium after 19 seasons on the job. Saye was the public address announcer whose voice of reason was heard calling down and distance between primal screams from others in an attempt to raise the decibel level…

Around the league

Would widening the field of play in the NFL another 35 yards to equal the size in three-down football reduce the chronic number of injuries in the game? It might, but even though that idea has as much of a chance of happening as widening NHL rinks that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been discussed. A report in the National Football Post this week quotes Bill Polian, who cut his teeth with the Als and Bombers before becoming a legendary executive with the Colts, as saying the NFL’s competition committee looked at the idea of widening the field as recently as a year ago. A wider field, Polian contended, would reduce the risk of concussions, which has the capacity of crippling the NFL if it doesn’t examine every opportunity to minimize the potential damage arising from the current litigation craze in the U.S. Widening the field means reducing the number of seats, of course, which means the idea won’t fly, but interesting nonetheless. It’s worth a read right here….

A novel idea last winter to hold a combine to scout potential CFL players in Cancun hasn’t worked out quite so well the second time. Player agent Mark Maren said he placed more than 30 per-cent of his campers on CFL teams last year as a result of a three-day session in the Caribbean. However, this year’s event was cancelled, with fraud charges in Mexico and Canada pending, according to a Fifth Quarter emailer. Lions personnel director Roy Shivers was among the CFL talent scouts lined up by Maren to participate only to be told the night before the event about the change in plans. The Hamilton Spectator reports several players who paid a $750 camp fee and up-front travel expenses are upset that the event was cancelled on Super Bowl weekend at the last minute.

They said it

Tweets too good to ignore

Rob Murphy @BIGMURPH56, ex-Lions lineman and Twitter all-star emeritus: “The Pope resigned? All the other religious leaders in the world are calling their agents right now..They want those #s + how it’s structured”

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